


chewing sand

by urwasted



Category: Black Panther (2018), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Drabble, F/M, One-Sided Attraction, dark themes, slight gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 12:25:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16743961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/urwasted/pseuds/urwasted
Summary: There’s no stain harder to get out than love, a deep dark that never rubs out, no matter how long you scrub.





	chewing sand

The problem with love, Shuri’s found, is it bleeds. Hearts bleed sticky-sweet and syrupy, and they make a mess of everything. There’s no stain harder to get out than love, a deep dark that never rubs out, no matter how long you scrub. It touches everything too, gets under your nails and sticks deep in the cracks of broken people. It drowns lovers pretty, swallows them whole, clogs pores and fills lungs. It’s gritty too, burns throats and rips skin raw like sandpaper.

Love bleeds, and boy does it make a bloody mess.

The porcelain of her shower walls splash clean under the spray of water; dripping down to run past her feet. It runs clear, this she’s sure of, and the monotony of it is bittersweet. She’ll have to get out soon, but the rush of water burns down her back, just over the line of too hot, and she savours it.

She loiters in front of the mirror once she’s done, drops the towel and just looks at herself, pulls her braids over her shoulder and cherishes the now sensitive skin of her back. Bruises loop down from her neck to her stomach, littering love bites fresh as dawn and dirt and wildflowers. She takes note of how her pores don’t bleed, and how amber doesn’t leak from her eyes, sticky and dark. She’s clean, save for the marks sucked into her skin, and she thankful for it.

The sheets of her bed though, are not clean. They’re covered in splotches of black-red, she knows where the stains have come from, hates it.

He’s buried under those sheets, and it sickens her.

“Where’d you go, pretty baby?” His hair falls over his forehead, fluffy and dark, with speckles of grey visible even from her perch at the bathroom door. He’s soft with sleep, wrinkles smoothed out around his eyes, and the affection she finds there sends her stomach rolling.

“Nothing, I was just about to go up to the lab is all. I tried not to wake you up.” That part wasn’t a lie, she’d really tried, left him to drown in the bed he’d made himself.

“It’s early, come back to bed? I’m sure whatever you’re running off to can wait.”

And her traitorous legs do as he asks, like they always do.

The sheets cling to her as she crawls in, blood sticking all over again, ruining the perfect clean of her skin. The arm that wraps around her waist makes it even worse, and she shivers as he bleeds all over her now, warm and seeping deep.

“You okay? You’re kinda warm.”

“It’s nothing, Tony. I just got out of the shower.”

He doesn’t reply to that, just holds onto her tighter, and Shuri’s knows she’ll have to shower again, wipe the evidence of  _ this _ off her skin. She’ll have to burn herself to get it off soon, she’d set the whole damn place ablaze to get away from it.

Because hearts may bleed dark, but broken ones pour out abyss from every crack.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on tumblr [bruhhemianrhapsody](https://bruhhemianrhapsody.tumblr.com)


End file.
